Better Social Media Ltd. (Better), which claims to be the world’s only social platform providing a verified-user only environment, has announced today that it is moving into closed Alpha testing, with a view to move into private Beta testing this summer.

Better’s platform aims to improve how people interact on social media by ensuring that all user profiles have been validated before allowing them to interact with other users.

People who wish to remain completely anonymous (e.g. not verified) will still be able to register an account to follow their favourite celebrities, journalists, family, etc. as normal, but they will not be able to post any content or contact other users directly. This is a protective measure to stop bad actors from creating anonymous, fake accounts to threaten, harass or distribute false information.

The company also vows not to use its platform to promote its founders’ or employees’ own viewpoints, whether political or other. 

“We firmly believe that the primary driver of fake news, cyberbullying and trolling is the fact that anyone can, in seconds, set up as many fake profiles as they want and start posting content and contacting other users,” said Better Founding Director,

David Brown. “This approach has proven over time to enable abusers, fraudsters and bad actors to harass people, and spread disinformation easily and largely without consequence. We wanted to build something Better, so we did.

“I also don’t like the fact that many of the other new platforms are taking openly politically partisan stances. I understand how we as a society arrived at this point, but I don’t think it’s the right way to address the problem. There’s too much influence from fake accounts and bot networks that are being used by bad actors to create division in society and I’m confident that if we can get rid of those issues, we will find that people really aren’t that far apart.”

Additional features of the platform include the ability to edit posts for a limited amount of time (original posts will be archived); a paid, no-ads option that will remove all advertising from a user’s feed; and the ability to exclude their usage stats from data analytics. (All personal information will be anonymised at all times.)

Better has enabled early registration on its homepage for anyone interested in reserving their username and participating in the public beta test in the summer, and has indicated that the first “few thousand” people who register will receive some sort of special recognition, although there are no details yet.

You can find more information and pre-register here.